Brond Page 4

  THREE

  That summer jobs were hard to come by, but I was so lucky I could turn one down. Dennis Harland described it to me. It would take me out of the country for the whole vacation, and the pay was good. Yet I turned it down. ‘Professor Gracemount mentioned your name,’ Dennis twinkled. And later, ‘I know you’ve never had the chance to be abroad. You’ll find it an invaluable experience.’ Something bloody-minded in me made me refuse. I regretted it at leisure, of course.

  When the goalkeeper of the amateur team I played for had his appendix out, he was back fumbling crosses inside three weeks. They wrote a story about him in the local paper. I reckoned I was at least as fit as that and a lot stronger, so to prove something I got myself a summer job as a removal man.

  It is important to be in charge of your own life.

  We wore aprons with the company’s name and went in and out with chairs and children’s trikes and washing machines. There were old machines plumbed into the kitchens of tenement flats all four of us lifted together. Andy the driver organised – if you felt underneath there were handgrips.

  ‘I’ve been at this game thirty years,’ Andy said more than once. ‘You’ll get young guys like you built like bulls and half the time they’re knackered. Don’t know how to lift. It’s a knack.’

  And he would hold up a kitchen chair balanced by one leg and grin at me through the bars. He was a small man, white headed though he wasn’t more than fifty. As the driver, he organised where stuff went in the van, and packed in extraordinary amounts for he was good – although after a while I got it into my head that his knack ran too much to steering clear of the heaviest work. Of course, I was only the student who would walk away at the end of the summer. Why not pile it on to me? They were probably all at it, and I worried about the ache in my side. I began to match cunning with a bit of cunning – seeming to be busy but avoiding as much of the awkward stuff as I could. That went on until the second man, Davie, spoke to me. He was married and moody tempered.

  ‘Look ya young bastard,’ he said. We were at the back of the van waiting for Andy to come out of the office. ‘See if you keep this up? Ye’ll get hurt.’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  He was about half my size and not much older than me. He wore what looked like the same green dirty pullover all the time and had a cold most days. I couldn’t see him giving me any trouble.

  ‘Ye know all right. You’re hell of a fly right enough.’

  ‘No idea what you’re talking about.’

  He squinted at me in the sunlight. A long drop of water sparkled from the end of his nose.

  ‘Fine. Ye’ll no be bothered about Andy watchan ye then.’

  ‘That’s up to him, isn’t it? He’s old enough to speak for himself. Till he has a complaint I’ll reckon he’s satisfied.’

  Across the sunlight in the yard, we could see him on the other side of the glass chatting up the counter girl. She was blonde and shiny and miniature.

  ‘He’s taking his time.’

  ‘Wasting it more like,’ I said. ‘Daft at his age.’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ He hawked up a gob of disgusted green slime. ‘You’ve got it all weighed up. That’s a wee ram in there. Magic wi women. He’s had his candle in more candlesticks than you’ve had wet dreams.’

  Andy turned away and came out into the yard. Through the glass the little blonde watched him. He winked at us and started over.

  Like a rattle ofpeas, words were spat in my ear as we watched him strut towards us at his leisure.

  ‘Last chance. He’ll no tell ye tae buck up. Ah’ve seen him put folk oot the game. Never prove a thing.’ His voice dropped appreciatively. ‘It’s a knack.’

  We were to pick up the fourth man on the way to the job.

  ‘Told Primo to wait at his corner,’ Andy said.

  Primo wasn’t tall but he was broad, broader than anybody I had ever seen in real life. If Andy was not there, he would snatch up one of the monstrous machines all four of us usually handled and take it out on his own. He had arms like a gorilla and never rose to Andy’s baiting, which went on more or less non-stop. I had a theory this was based on professional jealousy – if you were as uncannily strong as that, knack played second fiddle. Primo, Andy called him, or the man mountain.

  ‘He’d better be there,’ Andy said.

  He swung the van out into the traffic. In the cabin you were high up, above the roofs of the cars. A horn brayed under our wheels.

  ‘He’s no happy,’ I said. ‘You made him stand on his brakes.’

  ‘Tough.’ He grinned at me. ‘If any of these mugs hit us, they’ll fold like a box o cream buns. And this big sweetheart’ll no even dent.’

  He patted the wheel, pleased with himself. He had a very pleasant open manner. I wondered about the four of us on a heavy lift and Andy’s knack telling him when to let go. Racked muscles would be getting off lightly. Broken bones would be likelier.

  ‘I’m feeling a lot better this morning,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, aye.’

  ‘I was feeling rough the last couple of days.’

  ‘Oh? Keep your eyes peeled, Davie, for the man mountain. He might be hanging oot a window peeling a banana.’

  The morose Davie grunted. We were in a street of dilapidated tenements and bricked up windows. Chunks of broken glass glittered light up at the gang slogans. I tried again.

  ‘I had an operation for my appendix. I thought my side was playing me up.’

  ‘Stupid job tae take,’ Davie said.

  ‘I felt good. I suppose I was proving something.’

  ‘Proving you’re away wi it.’

  ‘Don’t be hard on the boy,’ Andy said with the same pleasant grin. ‘You were young yourself. Pay him no heed, son. He has his bad days wi being married. She no let you in last night, Davie?’

  Davie sniffed the loose water back up his nose.

  ‘It’s a rotten feeling when ye cannae find the door key. The boy here doesnae know about door keys coming in all sizes. He’s too young. No use taking a yale key tae a big lock.’

  ‘Give it a rest. Do you never get tired listening to yourself?’

  Andy laughed delightedly.

  ‘There’s Primo,’ I said. ‘At the close mouth.’

  ‘Typical,’ Andy said. ‘I say the corner so he waits at the close. When they were dishing out brains, he was hiding behind the door.’

  The van pulled up on the road side of a row of cars.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Andy said, ‘what’s keeping him?’

  From the cabin, bright sun shining across the dirty glass, the close beyond Primo was a black tunnel. He looked into it with his back to us, then turned as if at a word and came over.

  ‘Whit kept ye? What were ye lookan at?’ Andy nagged.

  Primo stared at him peaceably.

  ‘Would you like me tae get a bigger van? This one too wee for ye tae see?’

  I had not once heard Primo answer in anger. For Andy and Davie that confirmed him as stupid, but I could not get rid of the image of him trotting down a flight of stairs with a machine two other men would have struggled to lift. He was such a quiet man, though, that you lost sight of that great difference, that gap – and Andy helped, if that was the right way to put it.

  ‘I don’t know how Primo sticks it,’ I said to Davie. The job was in an old tenement; open stairs with awkward turns and stone steps worn in the centre with a hundred years of trudging down.

  ‘Bet you the bugger’ll be on the top floor,’ Davie said cheerlessly. Andy had gone up to check.

  I lowered my voice. Primo was hunkered down against the wall by the close, easy in the warm sun.

  ‘I don’t know why he doesn’t tell Andy tae can it.’

  ‘You frightened of Andy?’

  ‘Me? He’s been okay wi me.’

  He took a watery pull at his nose.

  ‘Should be.’

  ‘What? Should be what?’

  ‘Nothing. Long as you’re hap
py.’

  ‘Are you still on about me taking my share of the work?’

  A stir of temper gave me an unwelcome surprise. I very rarely got angry but it would come on me without warning. Sometimes afterwards I could hardly understand why I had reacted so badly.

  ‘I do my share,’ I said. ‘But I’m not doing more than my share. I’m not a mug.’

  Davie snorted.

  ‘Talk sense, ya young clown.’

  The dangerous movement of temper coiled tighter. I was no good at arguing with words. I couldn’t find them, and when that happened the anger pressed inside me. At school in my fourth year it had pressed too hard. I broke the prefect’s cheekbone and they wanted to expel me but the evidence came out of how I had been provoked. The headmaster was sympathetic: I was one of the bright boys who was going to do the school credit.

  Desperately I tried to sidetrack what was happening.

  ‘You lot have been at this game for years. And you’re a team. Know one another.’

  Any words would do.

  ‘Not at all,’ Davie said. ‘Years! Jesus! This is a fly by night outfit. I’ve been wi them three months. And the monkey,’ he moved his eyes in the direction of Primo, ‘he joined up the day before you came.’

  The miracle happened. The tension washed out of me – and only because he had dropped his voice on ‘monkey’, careful against even the outside chance of being overheard. I had been taken off the hook.

  As if he realised there had been a change, he harked back to where we had started.

  ‘Why should the monkey tell Andy tae chuck it? He’s too stupid to ken he’s being kidded.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it. If he did take exception, Andy would have to run for it.’

  ‘Oh, the Uni teaches ye to be smart.’

  I had not realised he had a grudge against students. ‘Yooni,’ he said, dragging it out like one of the gobs ofslime that parted so affectionately from his lips.

  ‘Don’t need to be smart to know Primo could hammer Andy into the ground wi one hand stuck up his jumper.’

  I had gone through my life making resolutions to keep my mouth shut. The empty pot rattles loudest: that was the kind of proverb my mother had branded into me; I told myself, a still tongue and keep your ears open. It had never worked so far. I was a strong silent man who liked to gossip.

  Behind me Andy’s voice crackled, ‘Gentlemen o leisure, are ye?’ and Davie sneered discreetly as I twitched like a frog’s hind leg. ‘Top floor – right hand side – auld party name o Morrison.’

  If he had heard me, he gave no sign, but pantomimed a kick at the big man resting against the wall.

  ‘Shift your arse, jumbo. You’re no paid tae get a tan.’

  Primo opened one eye and smiled peaceably.

  It was a two-room and kitchen flat. Morrison was old and tremulous. He explained that most of his furniture was going into store.

  ‘Ye’ll be careful with that,’ he kept saying.

  ‘No sweat, grandpa,’ the cheerful Andy repeated with never a sign of being ruffled or getting impatient. The reassurance came automatically, ‘No sweat, grandpa.’ Davie sniffed steadily as we worked.

  ‘My wife had beautiful taste,’ the old man explained. ‘Bought at the auctions.’

  Everything we lugged out was old and solid: oak tables and dutch dressers, everything wood without a veneer or plyboard from front to back. Sweat ran down my chest and my side niggled. Too many years had polished the stairs smooth. I groped for every step and wished I had toes that would grip like a monkey on a branch. Using my operation as an excuse to Andy, I had brought a curse on myself.

  When we had emptied the flat, except for one wardrobe, the old man produced a six-pack of lager.

  ‘Would you care for a refreshment?’

  We drank and studied the monstrous wardrobe. It came to within inches of the ceiling and hid most of that wall.

  ‘My wife was very proud of it.’ He was drinking tea from a tumbler. I’m a teetotaller myself, he had said, producing the beer, but I don’t object in others. His thin old man’s hand curled blue around the glass. ‘She’d be sad to see this day. Not that I blame my daughter. With a young family she has no room for my furniture. But I’ll not see it sold.’

  Andy opened the doors and peered inside.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ his voice came muffled from inside. ‘It’s in one piece. I was sure it would split up. Here, get it out frae the wall till I check.’

  Before we could work it out, Primo took one end and flexed it out a couple of feet. Andy squinted along the back.

  ‘Bloody solid,’ he reported. ‘They must have had a hell of a job getting it in here.’

  ‘We were very lucky,’ Mr Morrison said seriously. ‘The outside door and this room being in line. It wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.’

  ‘That was right lucky,’ Davie said grimly. He had finished one can and was opening one of the two that was left. He walked the length of the wardrobe, then came to the middle and leaned on it with one hand. Apart from his face getting red, nothing happened. ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘I’m no paid enough tae shift something like this. It’s out o order. Ye’d need a block and bloody tackle.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Morrison looked alarmed. ‘They had no equipment when they brought it.’

  ‘How many did it take tae bring it up?’ Davie demanded.

  As the old man blinked, I had the eerie impression he looked cunning.

  ‘Oh, I can’t remember that. It was such a long time since. Four like yourselves – or maybe three.’

  ‘And the rest,’ Davie said.

  ‘We’ll do it,’ Andy said. ‘It just takes a bit o thinking. No sweat, grandpa.’

  ‘Join the professionals,’ Davie said and gathered stuff into the back of his throat audibly.

  Andy began lifting out drawers and stacking them neatly out of the way. The wardrobe was furnished on both sides with tie racks and shirt drawers, drawers for socks and little drawers for bits and pieces. They were all empty except one of the small drawers that had three cufflinks in it. Old Morrison fished them out apologetically, wrapping them in his handkerchief and tucking the lot into his breast pocket.

  ‘This should have gone earlier,’ Davie said.

  ‘Not at all,’ Andy said. I had never thought to see a fifty-year-old furniture remover bridle. ‘It’s all planned. Don’t you worry. There’s a place for it.’

  ‘Once it’s down.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. The flaming boy here would give ye a showing up.’

  Davie disconcerted me with a look of snot-green venom.

  ‘He’s too educated tae know there’s something tae worry about.’

  The wardrobe doors were closed and locked with a little brass key produced by Mr Morrison, who winced as we bound a rope round the brute.

  ‘Make it two,’ Andy said.

  After that there didn’t seem to be any excuse for not starting.

  We managed it to the first landing and put it down for a rest. Primo had taken the front end by himself with Andy at the back and Davie and me in the middle. The weight was incredible. I leaned across the bannister to get privacy while I gasped for air. Behind my thighs the long muscles jerked and twitched.

  ‘You could die doing this.’ I said.

  ‘Not you, boy,’ Andy said. I could see the sweat starting out under the grey line of his hair. ‘You’re a horse.’ He grinned. ‘You’ve earned your corn too for a change.’

  ‘No way!’ Davie’s nose had gone as sharp as a bacon slicer. He was a rickety monument to a life’s diet of cream buns and chips. I couldn’t imagine how he survived this job. He sobbed at me, ‘Ah don’t think you’re lifting the bastard at all.’

  ‘You’re a boring little prick,’ I said.

  When he came at me I watched his hands, which was a country boy’s mistake. A good footballer when he heads the ball bangs it with the hard bone at the ridge of the forehead. That’s where Davie – who must have been a handy p
layer, at school, or even among the juniors – and often outside the dancing when the boys lined up for trouble – was going to connect, not with a leather ball but across my nose and teeth.

  During the winter since I had come to the city, I had seen it done. Stumps and fragments of teeth spat out in sprays of blood from between burst flesh and then a gush of vomit.

  I heard the suck of his breath as if he was drawing up liquid through a straw and then his head came at me like a bullet. I had no chance to get out of the way. It happened too fast for me to move and I would feel it, see my own blood, hear the blurt of teeth and sour liquid vomited out; and in the same second Davie’s head struck the flat palm of Primo’s hand held before me. There was no give in it at all. Davie seemed to be stunned. As for me, I was in shock.

  Minutes later we were reorganised and heaving at the brute wardrobe. If there was a knack, Andy must have had it. Or maybe it was the only way out we had left ourselves – to get that monstrous burden down. Primo and I took the front for the awkward turn of the stair. Again the weight crushing down put everything out of my head except the pride that wouldn’t admit it was too much for me.

  My mouth stretched wide, a yell of protest in silence.

  ‘Steady as you go . . .’ Andy’s voice sounded extraordinarily controlled. ‘Together . . . Let her come.’

  I watched it come and it dipped down at me. It was like Davie’s greasy skull, inevitable. I tried to hold it but it tipped and I watched it go down on my foot. The pain was white like going into ice. I fell on one knee, twisted half under the weight. I was held between the wood and the worn stone. I was helpless against every particle of the weight. A mountain of wood moved and leaned out over me.

  I knew I was going to die.

  At a distance Andy was shouting and then Primo made an animal noise and his arm came round above me. Against nature, the mountain rose. I fell away to one side, crouched tight against the bannister like a child refusing to be born, and the great side hurtled down before me endlessly.

  There was an avalanching uproar and when I could look everything was smashed and the wall sliced with crazy gaps as if it had been bombed.

  Into the silence like reverence Andy said, ‘Christ! What a disaster!’